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Ken Sufka, our VISIONS Across America-featured alum for the state of Mississippi, has been named the 2014 Mississippi Professor of the Year. The award comes from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Ken (’86 psychology, MS ’88, PhD ’90) is a professor of psychology and pharmacology at the University of Mississippi. You can read our VISIONS Across America story about him here.

We all know Jim Heemstra’s work on the VISIONS Across America project was AMAZING. On Friday, Oct. 10 he’ll be honored with the 2014 Impact Award during the ISU Homecoming Honors & Awards ceremony. The Impact Award honors individuals who have brought broad recognition to the university during the previous year (Cyclone basketball standout Melvin Ejim is the other 2014 recipient).

Jim is being honored for his work with the VISIONS Across America magazine and museum exhibition this past year. But I like to think of this as a lifetime achievement award for the thousands of incredible images Jim has made of the ISU campus and for VISIONS magazine. He’s a legend, and although he’s not so keen on winning awards, he is definitely deserving.

Here’s a link to all the awards being given on Friday to many other deserving Iowa State alumni and friends. Congrats to all.

Now that the VISIONS Across America: Portraits of Iowa State Alumni by Jim Heemstra exhibition has ended its April-August run in the Brunnier Art Museum, we’re taking the show on the road.

A select number of portraits will travel to five cities beginning this fall. Locations include the Twin Cities (Oct. 22), Chicago (Nov. 13), Kansas City (March 10), Omaha, and Denver. Those last two dates will be announced as soon as they are set.

I’ll be going on the tour, along with photographer Jim Heemstra and ISU Alumni Association president Jeff Johnson and others from our staff. We’ll be bringing about 20 portraits to each city; the portraits will vary depending on the location.

John Arends (’77 journalism) has devoted much of his life to telling the Jack Trice story. And now it’s one step closer to getting the national attention it deserves.

We profiled John as part of the VISIONS Across America project back in September 2012. Since then I’ve eagerly followed his progress toward getting his Jack Trice movie screenplay produced.

Just last week it was announced that John was chosen as one of six screenwriters to travel to Las Vegas for the second-annual Black List Screenwriters Lab. Hosted by Tony Hsieh’s Las Vegas Downtown Project, the lab is a week-long intensive workshop with professional mentors focused on elevating the writers’ work and preparing them for the “realities of life” in the profession.

The Black List is an online community where moviemakers find scripts to make and writers to write them … and where screenwriters find moviemakers to make their scripts and employ them. John says Trice has been trending on the Black List website for more than a year.

My apologies to On the Road subscribers who have been inundated with notifications of stories being posted on this blog. I thought it was time to post all the stories featured in the spring 2014 special VISIONS Across America issue of the magazine, so I added all 51 stories the past two days.

You can now search “categories” by state, and all the stories written about alumni who live in that state or our travel to that state will appear. You can also search by month posted under “archives” — but obviously that only works if you know the month the story was posted. For the most recent ones, search May 2014 and June 2014.

After 30 years in the Navy, Don Hess thought it was time to retire. After all, he had commanded two ships and was chief of staff for aircraft carrier operations in the Person Gulf during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He had also served as a Congressional liaison on behalf of the Department of the Navy with the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

And now he was taking it easy in Hawaii.

But his wife, Joy, whom he met in 1995, said to him one day, “Don, you know, you were a lot more interesting when you were working than now that you’re retired.”

Still in his early 50s, Don had to agree that he really was too young to be retired, so he started “casting about” for something to do. He became a volunteer leader for the United Way.

“That gave me the first feel-good feeling that I’d had since I left service,” Don said. And from that involvement, through the friend of a friend, he learned that a not-for-profit group was looking for somebody to take charge of a retired Naval ship that was destined for Pearl Harbor.

That ship was the USS Missouri, a legendary battleship with a long history of service. A world-famous battleship where Japan surrendered to end World War II. A battleship with Don Hess’s name written all over it.

Don signed on as the vice president of operations for the USS Missouri Memorial. He helped coordinate the vast undertaking of towing the ship to Pearl Harbor, and he developed a plan to exhibit the ship to visitors.

The Memorial opened on Jan. 29, 1999, with 1,500 visitors coming aboard the mighty ship on the first day. In 2000 Don became the Memorial’s executive vice president and COO, and from 2002 to 2008 he served as president and COO.

“Volunteers are the lifeblood of the organization,” he said. “When we first brought the ship here, we had a staff of maybe half a dozen. But as soon as we docked here, there were volunteers at the gate just waiting to say, ‘How can we help you?’”

Don retired from the Memorial in 2008, but he’s taken on yet another career: as executive vice president of Wakelight Technologies, a company founded by his wife.

Life in Hawaii suits the retired Navy captain.

“What do I love about Hawaii? I haven’t worn a tie in years. I love being barefoot,” he said. “There’s a saying that when you’re in Washington, D.C., no matter how good the day, when you walk out of the office at the end of the day, you’re still in Washington, D.C. Whereas when you’re in Hawaii, no matter how bad the day, at the end of the day when you walk out the door, you’re in Hawaii.”

Two years out of college, Laura Tauke was ready for a change. The Dubuque native had been working as a graphic designer for design firms in Madison, Wis., but found that agency work was not a good fit.

“I was 23 years old; I wasn’t ready for a desk job,” she said. “I was used to being active.”

So Laura (’05 graphic design) joined AmeriCorps and went to Alaska.

It was love at first sight.

Laura worked with at-risk teenagers at an alternative high school. She also resumed her active lifestyle, taking full advantage of the mountains and other outdoor recreation opportunities. At the same time, she began a successful freelance design business. Everything just clicked.

“I had bought a round trip ticket, but I just didn’t go home,” she said.

That was in 2007. Since her AmeriCorps service ended, Laura has lived in Kodiak (where she freelanced, hiked, biked, camped on the beach, and learned to fly-fish) and Seward (where she worked at the Alaska SeaLife Center and learned about Alaskan marine wildlife).

Now she’s back in Anchorage, working as an art director for “the best agency” – Solstice Advertising. She just bought a house and is engaged to be married.

Alaska has continued to offer unlimited opportunities and adventures. Laura’s outdoor activities include mountain climbing, deep-sea fishing, caribou hunting, and back-country skiing. But that’s usually on the weekend. During the week, she bikes. Year-round.

“There’s a population that bikes year-round up here,” she says. “It’s easy to get places, easy to park. You can even put your bike on the buses here.